Luther's
"On War Against the Turk":
Inspiration for America's War on Islamic Terrorism from
an Earlier Protagonist

By
Garry J. Moes

The
protestations of our national leaders notwithstanding,
the current world war against Islamic terrorism is the
third millennium's first outbreak of a religious conflict
which dates back to the first millennium and which has
reached climactic points in each of the millennia of the
Christian era. Nearly three-quarters of the way into the
first thousand years, a fierce Christian warrior hammered
the Moors back from the gates of Europe. And a crisis
midway through the second millennium roused one of
history's most courageous Christian leaders to produce a
potent clarion call which could serve to motivate the new
American-led crusade against the Mohammedan infidel.

October 10,
AD 732, marks the conclusion of what arguably was one of
the most decisive battles in all of history, the Battle
of Tours, as upon its issue depended whether Christian
Civilization should continue or Islam prevail throughout
Europe

A Muslim
army, in a crusading search for land and the end of
Christianity, after the conquest of Syria, Egypt, and
North Africa, began to invade Western Europe under the
leadership of Abd-er Rahman, governor of Spain. Abd-er
Rahman led an infantry of 60,000 to 400,000 soldiers
across the Western Pyrenees and toward the Loire River,
but they were met just outside the city of Tours by an
incisive Christian opponent, Charles Martel, known as the
Hammer, and the Frankish Army.

Martel gathered his forces directly in the
path of the oncoming Muslim army and prepared to defend
themselves by using a phalanx style of combat. The
invading Muslims rushed forward, relying on the slashing
tactics and overwhelming number of horsemen that had
brought them victories in the past. However, the French
Army, composed of foot soldiers armed only with swords,
shields, axes, javelins, and daggers, was well trained.
Despite the effectiveness of the Muslim army in previous
battles, the terrain caused them a disadvantage. Their
strength lay within their cavalry, armed with large
swords and lances, which along with their baggage mules,
limited their mobility. The Christian army displayed
great ardency in withstanding the ferocious attack. It
was one of the rare times in the Middle Ages when
infantry held its ground against a mounted attack. The
exact length of the battle is undetermined; Arab sources
claim that it was a two-day battle whereas Christian
sources hold that the fighting clamored on for seven days.
In either case, the battle ended when the French captured
and killed Abd-er Rahman. The Muslim army withdrew
peacefully overnight and even though Martel expected a
surprise retaliation, there was none. For the Muslims,
the death of their leader caused a sharp setback and they
had no choice but to retreat back across the Pyrenees,
never to return again.

Not only did
this prove to be a decisive battle for the Christians,
but the Battle of Tours is considered the high water mark
of the Muslim invasion of Western Europe (Source: Jewish Virtual Library).

By the early
sixteenth century, Muslim conquerors were again
threatening to overwhelm western civilization. The lands
from Morocco in the west to Indonesia in the east were
already under the influence of Islamic rule and culture.
The area was controlled by three dominant groups 
the Ottoman Turks, rulers of the Middle East and North
Africa and conquerors of much of Eastern Europe; the
Mogul of India, who advanced southward; and the Safavids,
who held Persia (modern Iran). Other areas of Africa and
Asia also fell to Islam during this era.

The Islamic
expansion led to a rash of new converts, some of whom
were coerced by sword into accepting the Muslim faith.
Others were converted through contact with Islamic
traders and preachers. Many Muslims, especially
merchants, married local women who were persuaded to
embrace the Islamic religions. Muslim schools were then
started to educate their children. Often non-Muslims
attended these schools, later converting to the faith.

The Ottoman
Empire reached its height after conquering Constantinople
in 1453. Nearly three-quarters of a century later,
Suleiman the Magnificent, their greatest ruler, led the
Turks across the Danube River to destroy the Hungarian
state (1526), part of the empire of the Catholic
Hapsburgs and within three years, laid seige to Vienna.
Had Vienna fallen, the tide of Islam may well have swept
into Western Europe (Garry J. Moes: Streams of
Civilzation, Vol. II (Arlington Heights, Illinois:
Christian Liberty Press, 1995), p. 4).

It was this threat that proved a
great distraction to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V,
the Hapsburg ruler in Spain. Charles feared the rise of
the Lutheran Reformation, which was splitting the
frontline German states away from his empire, and it was
this fear, in part, that led Charles to pour out
vengeance on the Reformation and its leader, Martin
Luther. On his part, Luther feared that the pope would
form an alliance with the Turks to thwart the Reformation
and the breakup of the Holy Roman Empire. Luther, an
outlaw under Charles's ban and the pope's
excommunication, saw the Muslim threat for what is was
 a religious and civil crisis of the highest order
 and with characteristic fearlessness, he called
upon the European princes, especially the German rules
who had rallied to the Reformation, to repel the heathen
invaders.

Earlier, in
1523, Luther had address the general issue of the justice
of war in his work, Temporal Authority: To What
Extent Should It Be Obeyed? In this work, he warned
against armed rebellion and revolution against one's own
rulers, who he viewed as God's ordained servants. But he
added:

If
however, the antagonist is your equal, your inferior,
or of a foreign government, you should first offer
him justice and peace, as Moses taught the children
of Israel. If he refuses, then  mindful of what
is best for you  defend yourself against force
by force, as Moses so well described it in
Deuteronomy 20 [:10-12]. But in doing this you must
not consider your personal interests and how you may
remain lord, but those of your subjects to whom you
owe help and protection, that such action may proceed
in love. Since your entire land is in peril you must
make the venture, so that with God's help all may not
be lost. If you cannot prevent some from becoming
widows and orphans as a consequence, you must at
least see that not everything goes to ruin until
there is nothing left except widows and orphans.

In this
matter subjects are in duty bound to follow, and to
devote their life and property, for in such case one
must risk his goods and himself for the sake of
others. In a war of this sort it is both Christian
and an act of love to kill the enemy without
hestation, to plunder and burn and injure him by
every method of warfare until he is conquered.... And
when victory has been achieved, one should offer
mercy and peace to those who surrender and humble
themselves. In such a case let the proverb apply,
"God helps the strongest." This is what
Abraham did when he smote the four kings, Genesis 14;
he certainly slaughtered many, and showed little
mercy until he conquered them. Such a case must be
regarded as sent by God as a means to cleanse the
land for once and drive out the rascals. (Luther's
Works, vol. 45: Christian in Society II,
trans. J.J. Schindel, revised Walther I. Brandt.
Philadelphis: Fortress Press, 1962, pp. 124-125.)

Wittingly or
unwittingly, President George W. Bush seems to have taken
inspiration from these words of Luther in our new war to
"smoke out" the Taliban / Al Quida rascals,
vowing unrelenting assault against the aggressor, yet
mixing that determination with humanitarian mercy for
war's victims. At the same time, the president appears to
take a far more tolerant view of the supposed benign
nature of mainstream Islam than Luther did. Luther minced
few words in describing the brutality of the Islamic holy
warrior. He devoted an entire treatise, in fact, to his
powerful trumpet call for defense against the Ottoman
assault on Europe. In his 1529 On War Against the
Turk, Luther called upon the civil authorities to do
their duty to protect the citizenry with the divinely
ordained application of the sword against the Muslim
"abomination," whose adherents he called "blasphemers"
against Christ.

Editor Robert
C. Schultz points out that Luther made it clear that a
war against the Turks was not the prerogative or realm of
the church and should not be a religious crusade of the
church, but it was properly the duty of Christian men
operating in the appropriate civil jurisdiction. "Luther's
concern throughout the book is to teach men how to fight
with a clear conscience," Schultz says. "In so
doing he develops two major points. There are, he says,
only two men who may properly fight the Turk. The first
of these is the Christian, who by prayer, repentance, and
reform of life takes the rod of anger out of God's hand
and compels the Turk to stand on his own strength. The
second man who may wage war is the emperor. The Turk has
wrongfully attacked the emperor's subjects, and by virtue
of the office to which God has appointed him, the emperor
is duty-bound to protect and defend the subjects with
whose care God has entrusted him" (Luther's
Works, vol. 46: Christian and Society III,
trans. Charles M. Jacobs, revised R.C. Schultz;
Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967, p. 159).

In warning
against any form of appeasement of, cooperation with or
accommodation of "the Turk," Luther called the
Moslem "a destroyer, enemy, and blasphemer of our
Lord Jesus Christ, a man who instead of the gospel and
faith sets up his shameful Mohammad and all kinds of
lies, ruins all temporal government and home life or
marriage, and his warfare, which is nothing but murder
and bloodshed, is a tool of the devil himself. See then!
He who consorts with the Turk has to be a party to this
terrible abomination and brings down on his own head all
the murder, all the blood the Turk has shed, and all the
lies and vices with which he has damaged Christ's kingdom
and led souls astray" (Ibid., p. 195).

Luther was
adament in his call for duly authorized warfare against
the evil of Islam. In words which could well serve as a
call on modern America for national repentance in order
to merit the blessing of God upon its war against the
Islamic terror, Luther wrote:

[T]he
emperor should do whatever he can for his subjects
against the Turk, so that even though he cannot
entirely prevent this abomination, he may nonetheless
try to protect and rescue his subjects by checking
the Turk and holding him off. The emperor should be
moved to do this not only by duty, his office, and
God's command, nor only by the un-Christian and vile
government the Turk brings ... but also by the misery
and wretchedness that befalls his subjects.
Doubtlessly they know better than I how cruelly the
Turk treats those whom he takes captive. He treats
them like cattle, dragging, towing, driving those
that can move, and killing on the spot those that
cannot move, whether they are young or old. [The
Taliban appear to be worthy successors to the
Ottomans, in this respect.  GJM]

All this
and more like it ought to move all the princes, and
the whole empire to forget their own causes and
quarrels, or to put them aside for awhile, and
earnestly unite to help the wretched so that things
may not go as they went with Constantinople and
Greece [which fell (with cruel atrocities) to
Mohammed II in 1453 and 1461, respectively  GJM].

They
quarreled with one another and looked after their own
affairs for a long time until the Turk overwhelmed
both of them, as he has already come very near doing
to us in a similar case. But if this is not to be,
and our unrepentant life make us unworthy of any
grace, counsel, or support, we must put up with it
and suffer under the devil; but that does not excuse
those who could help and do not....

Finally,
I would have it understood as my kind and faithful
advice that if it comes to war against the Turk, we
should arm and perpare ourselves, and not
underestimate the Turk and not act as we Germans
usually do, and come on the field with twenty or
thirty thousand men. And even though good fortune is
bestowed upon us again and we win a victory, we have
no power in reserve, but sit down again and carouse
until another danger comes along. ... I must think
either that the princes and our Germans do not know
or believe the strength and power of the Turk, or
that they have no serious intention of fighting
against the Turk. ... My advice, then, is that we not
insufficiently arm ourselves. ... If we are not going
to make an adequate, honest resistance that will have
some reserve power, it would be far better not to
begin a war, but to yield lands and people to the
Turk in time, without useless bloodshed, rather than
have him win anyhow in an easy battle and with
shameful bloodshed. ... [H]e is a different kind of
warrior. The Turk has people and money in abundance;
... Why, dear sir, his people are always under arms
to that he can quickly muster three or four hundred
thousand men. If we were to cut down a hundred
thousand, he would soon be back again with as many
men as before. He has reserve power....

If our
kings and princes were to agree and stand by one
another and help each other, and the Christian man
were to pray for them, I should be undismayed and of
good hope. The Turk would stop his raging and find
his equal in Emperor Charles. Failing that, if things
go as they are going now, and no one is in agreement
with another or loyal to another and everyone wants
to be his own man and takes the field with a beggarly
array, I must let it go at that. Of course, I will
gladly help by praying, but it will be a weak prayer,
for because of the childish, presumptious, and short-sighted
way in which such great enterprises are undertaken, I
can have little faith that it will be heard, and I
know that this is tempting God and that he can have
no pleasure in it (Ibid., pp. 200-203).

While it is
certainly true that the spiritual and cultural awakening
which the Reformation brought to Europe was the
foundation from which Europe fought off the Islamic
vision and finally repelled the Muslim conquerors in 1683,
it must be noted that the civil magistrates of Europe who
responded to such advice as Luther gave in his 1529
treatise brought the immediate military victory. A
German, Austrian and Polish military alliance ended the
Muslim siege of Vienna that very year. When Suleiman died
in 1566, the long era of Ottoman victories and expansion
ended. The empire slipped into a period of indulgent
corruption and decline. And Islam posed no further
serious threat to western civilization until Sept. 11,
2001.

The nations
of the world now allied in the new global war against the
terroristic Islamic blasphemers of Christ would do well
to profoundly consider Luther's advice once again.